Lightborn Read online

  Kingsley nodded to Telmaine—another solecism—and left.

  “Did you know,” she said, before he could ask her, “did you even suspect—what they would talk about?”

  “I admit,” he said, “I had assumed it would be innocuous.” He paused. “I assume from your manner that it was not so.”

  “Mycene thinks Balthasar might know the name of Tercelle’s lover. He does not believe in the Shadowborn. We have to get Balthasar released from Ferdenzil Mycene’s hands before Mycene tries to force a name out of him!”

  “As I have said before,” Vladimer said, “my options are limited.”

  They would see about that. “My sister’s name was mooted, in the most degrading terms, as a possible bride to Ferdenzil Mycene.”

  “And you are not delighted at your sister’s potential elevation,” he said. “Tush, Lady Telmaine, such jealousy does not become you.”

  She fought down the heat of temper. “I refused Ferdenzil Mycene’s suit myself, Lord Vladimer, of my own free will, and for good reason.”

  “Lady Telmaine, frankly I would be delighted if Ferdenzil Mycene were to marry your sister. Your family, illustrious as it is, possesses no assets—not blood, or land, or resources, or talents—that Sachevar Mycene does not already possess a surfeit of. The marriage to Tercelle Amberley, on the other hand—”

  “The Amberleys are supplying him with munitions.”

  There was a beat. “And what,” Vladimer said, pulling himself forward, “does he plan to do with those munitions?”

  This was the moment—this was the moment to insist that he should do as she wanted, ensure Balthasar’s immunity, her sister’s freedom. “Lord Vladimer, I want—”

  “No,” he interrupted her, like a guillotine blade dropping. Her voice stalled, against her volition and determination. “Do not attempt to dictate to me. Either tell me or do not tell me, but should you withhold what you know, and harm comes to my brother, the state, or even myself, you will have me for an enemy, woman or no.”

  She recognized that she was finally meeting the Vladimer his enemies knew, devoid of the defensive shell of suspicion and mockery. This Vladimer had no need for either.

  “They’re going to destroy the Lightborn Mages’ Tower,” she whispered, with no more volition than had been involved in her falling silent a moment before.

  “They’re going to do what?”

  She had finally shocked him, and his reaction left her as terrified as she had been when he had caught her as a child trespassing in his private study. She sat as mute as that child, expecting at any moment to be struck or shaken. But mastery seemed to lend him patience. “Tell me,” he said quietly. “Tell me everything.”

  She said, “I—I—” and blurted sonn at him as she heard him struggle to his feet and retrieve a decanter and glass from the side cabinet. He uncorked the decanter with a clumsy one- handed motion, sluiced the drink into a glass, and, abandoning the cane on the cabinet top, limped to thrust the glass in front of her. “If I must get you drunk to loosen your tongue, I will, whatever the cost to your precious reputation.”

  The smell of brandy rasped her nose. She drank as he demanded, coughing at the strength of it. He gave the lie to his threat when he snatched the glass away unfinished, spilling brandy on her bodice. “Enough. I need you coherent.” He limped back to his chair and, standing, drained the last of the brandy himself. Then he simply let the glass fall. To her befogged wonder, it bounced gently on the thick carpet, unbroken. “Now,” he rasped, lowering himself into the chair again, “something about what they said overset you sufficiently to forget your most vehement refusal.”

  “They were so vile,” she whispered, “speaking of Balthasar and Anarysinde as though they were no more than—pawns—in their games.”

  “Ah,” Vladimer said, tautly ironic. “They would have thought that when their conversation was reported to me, I would think it of no account. But you, it fatally provoked.”

  “The footman called them away. I had to know what Mycene meant to do about Balthasar, about Anarysinde. But he had already stopped thinking of them—he didn’t care—he was thinking what he meant to say to the archduke, how to get certain streets evacuated that run close to the tower. He was wondering if it were worth the risk of arousing your suspicions, when those areas contained no one of real importance.”

  Vladimer made a soft sound in his throat, almost a growl. He had the reputation of holding the city in his mind as clearly as a game board. For herself, there was only one street and only one house adjacent to Lightborn territory that she cared about: Balthasar’s narrow town house that stood back- to-back with Floria White Hand’s. He had been born in that house, he had inherited it with his parents’ deaths, and while she wished he would part with it, it was not in this way.

  She gulped. “That was his clearest thought, that and satisfaction at ridding the state of such a threat. He—hates the notion that there should be a greater power than the state—than himself—that is not his. He—he envies mages their power.” She shuddered at the memory of the envy, a voracious envy that would destroy what it could not have.

  “How is it to be done?”

  “I’m not—I don’t know. It came to me mostly as impressions. Ishmael—” But she could not speak of Ishmael, having so utterly violated the principles he had tried to share with her. He had violated them himself once, in venturing to touch-read Tercelle Amberley, but that was for Florilinde.

  “If you cannot give me sufficient information to work with,” Vladimer said, dispassionately, “I will give you further opportunity to find out.”

  She gulped in air, but refusal would merely have been bluster.

  He resumed, patiently, “Will they attempt it during the daytime or the nighttime?”

  “I think—just before sunset. So that the Darkborn are not yet out in the streets.”

  “Ah, some vestige of social responsibility,” Vladimer said, with his old mordant humor. “Or tactical polish, since the Lightborn will be at their most helpless if their walls are breached after dark. Though how, if they plan to do it by day, shall they accomplish it?”

  “It has—something to do with Duke Kalamay’s estate on the other side of the river.”

  “The munitions are stored there?”

  “No, I think—I think the guns are there.” That was not derived from any explicit thought, but from a cluster of impressions and sensations: a stone crypt, smelling of gunpowder and metal. And an anticipation of the first salvo that was almost sexual in quality, a stone-shattering challenge to the power of the mages.

  “I did wonder,” Vladimer said slowly, “how they proposed to approach the tower through Lightborn areas, and with mages inside.”

  “They think the Lightborn mages do not pay attention to— nonmageborn Darkborn. They look upon our machinery and munitions as children’s toys.”

  “The mageborn in the tower, perhaps, but the Prince’s Vigilance concerns itself with more secular threats. . . .”

  She swallowed. “Mycene also has a contact amongst the Darkborn mages, who has been helping him.”

  “Ah,” said Vladimer, slowly. His sonn swept over her, but what he was probing for, she did not know. “And the name?”

  “He does not know it, though he has tried hard to find out.”

  “Darkborn,” Vladimer said thoughtfully, “or Shadowborn; would he know the difference? Is there any Lightborn collusion in this?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, again in trepidation.

  “But the munitions are in emplacements in Kalamay’s grounds on the far side of the river, within reach by shell of the tower. They have the range, and angle and inclination of fire, and the precision machinery to control. They will have tested them elsewhere. . . . They will have to hit with the first salvos; with mages, they will have no second chance.” He stopped suddenly, and shuddered. With fear or fever, she did not know.

  “Lord Vladimer,” she said, half rising.

  “Let
it be,” he said harshly, gripping his right elbow.

  “I wish I had not done it,” she whispered. “I feel—foul.”

  “Such an attitude reeks of self- indulgence,” he rasped. “Would you have us not learn of this conspiracy until the first salvo was fired?”

  “But where—does one stop, Lord Vladimer?” she said, in anguish, knowing the futility of asking for consolation of this man, especially.

  There was a silence, several heartbeats long. “One does not stop, Lady Telmaine,” he said, in a much quieter voice. “I suppose being a bastard in a noble family is not unlike being a woman,” he mused, ignoring her indrawn breath of affront. “Every aspiration beyond silence and obscurity is a threat. If I’d had sufficient cunning or good counsel, I should have played the half-wit—as a lady is obliged to play the lightwit—and saved myself much trial. Fortunately for me, Sejanus ignored his counselors and treated me as a brother and an ally instead of a shame and would-be usurper. In answer to your question, I will not stop while there is a threat to his standing and state remaining.”

  “I—can’t do that,” she whispered.

  “Can’t you? You already have abandoned conventional morals on behalf of your husband, your daughters, and Ishmael di Studier. The state and I are merely incidental beneficiaries. Love, Lady Telmaine, is not the tender emotion portrayed by the sentimental literature. Whether they speak its name or not, it brings people to dare, and do, what they would consider unthinkable. I suggest, my lady, that you visit your daughters, and remind yourself.”

  Telmaine

  As the carriage made its sharp turn into the long side driveway to the ducal palace, Telmaine’s unhappy mood deepened. In bitter rebellion at the use Vladimer had made of her, she had taken him at his word—let him manage his own safety—and had asked a carriage to be brought to drive her to her sister’s house.

  It had not been a relaxing visit, between Merivan’s questions and her brother-in-law’s inability to promise her that Balthasar’s safety could be assured. “It’s a dangerous game your husband’s been drawn into,” he said. “Even without the more—fantastic elements. He’s traveling with a known fugitive, and you say it was willingly.”

  “Lord Vladimer asked him,” she stressed.

  “In the absence of a warrant,” he said, “the arrest can be challenged. I warn you of two things: a warrant could be easily obtained, and it will not protect Balthasar from coming to immediate harm.” He sat, tapping his lip lightly. “I will arrange for one of my representatives and two of my agents to proceed to the Borders first thing tomorrow.” He smiled. “It may also prevent Balthasar’s idealism from leading him into further jeopardy.”

  If the price of Bal’s safety was that Theophile judged him naive and incapable of fending for himself, she would gladly pay that price. Outside the courtroom, Theophile judged with tolerance.

  And the children . . . she had thought a brief visit to their own home would cheer them up—it had certainly cheered her to review the earthshakingly ordinary matters of meals and domestic supplies in preparation for their eventual return. She had thought the children could collect any little treasures they wanted for their stay at Merivan’s. But she had not considered how the children would react to leaving again and how the crying and shrieking—Amerdale had evidently adopted this new tactic from Merivan’s next youngest—would affect her shattered nerves. Bal would be upset she had shouted at them. She was upset she had shouted at them.

  . . . Curse Vladimer, she thought, huddling in abject misery in the corner of the coach.

  If she were a different woman, she would retire to her room indisposed. Though if she were a different woman, she would not have let them put her in this impossible position. And she was not, she realized, going to have even a moment’s reprieve. Kingsley was skulking in the hall outside her room. Oh, Sole God, what now? She unclenched her mage sense to sweep it over the household, relieved to find Vladimer’s and the archduke’s distinctive vitalities unchanged.

  “Can’t stay long,” Kingsley said as soon as she closed the door behind them. “Wanted to let you know there’s maybe trouble simmering. Lord V.’s none too well, and he and Blondell had a knock-down-drag-out of an argument, there in Lord V.’s bedroom. Staff said they’ve never had anything like it before. Someone said they’d heard Blondell shouting about ‘treason,’ and you can imagine how the whispers’re spreading. And there’s gossip about what happened in the summerhouse, come back with some of the summerhouse staff; they’re talking about ensorcellment. People are starting to repeat old gossip about Lord V., and about his influence on the archduke.”

  “Lord Vladimer,” Telmaine said tartly, “is not overly concerned with gossip or reputation.” His own or other people’s.

  “They’ve never had ensorcellment to cast against him, m’lady,” Kip said somberly. “Last time I crossed paths with Blondell, he was wearing an ugly great amulet against magic. Maybe that was the quarrel, over the rumors of ensorcellment.” He shook his head slightly, qualifying the speculation. “When I come by more, I’ll let you know.”

  Alone, she sat and nibbled the finger of her glove. An amulet against magic—could there be such a thing? Was it a talisman itself, or a fake? She must avoid Casamir Blondell, either way. As for the argument, Vladimer could provoke even a follower of one of the contemplative disciplines. But gossip was a poison she understood. Even though Vladimer’s seemed a reputation apart, the archduke must eventually take heed. Was this merely a whispering campaign, taking advantage of Vladimer’s indisposition? Or could Mycene and Kalamay suspect that Vladimer knew about their guns? Was that the treason Blondell alluded to?

  The memory of how she had learned of those gun emplacements brought her to her feet to shake off uncomfortable recollection. She wished she had been better able to use the information to force Vladimer to protect Balthasar and Anarys. Or even—should she have gone directly to Mycene? But how, then, might she plausibly have come by the knowledge? Vladimer was the only one she could tell, because he already knew. She could only wish to be better at blackmail, and that—she did not desire.

  But if she could not depend upon Vladimer to protect Balthasar, her children, or even herself, if he did not judge it in his own interests, she must thank him for the lesson in realities, and make her own arrangements.

  Resolute now, she called her maid to her, satisfied herself that her dress provided the best possible compromise between appropriateness and unobtrusiveness, and set out to follow the route Lord Vladimer had taken her to Floria White Hand’s prison. Blessedly, she met no one on the way, and blessedly, too, the little interview room was empty. For a heartbeat she thought, from the silence, that Floria was gone—liberated, surrendered, or melted away as her lights failed. Then she brushed the familiar vitality and the familiar taint.

  “Mistress Floria?” she hissed.

  “Lady Telmaine,” said the other, with distinct relief. “Is anyone with you?”

  “No,” she said. “I came—Balthasar would—he would expect me to ensure your well-being.” Having more or less decided why she was here, she still did not know how she should explain it. “Are you well?”

  She expected the woman to deride her social airs, but all Floria did was sigh. “Has the prince asked for my surrender?”

  Telmaine’s hands closed to fists in her lacy sleeves. She would have said she had no desire to know what the other woman was thinking, ever. Now she was appalled at the temptation to fling a defining question at her and sweep from her mind the true answer.

  “Not yet,” Telmaine said, instead. “But the sun has yet to rise.”

  Floria said, “Maybe you can help me. The skylight is closed, and the door to the outside courtyard locked behind me when I came in. The lights I have with me will need recharged, sometime in the next twenty-four hours.”

  She did not want to admit that she was here without Vladimer’s knowledge or leave. “You would be best to speak to one of Lord Vladimer’s servants.”
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  There was a silence, in which Telmaine realized that Floria preferred not to reveal her vulnerability to anyone else.

  “When do you expect Balthasar back?” Floria said.

  She subdued the reflex to tell the woman that was none of her business; why else had she come here except to hope for an ally?

  “Oh, spare me, Telmaine,” Floria uncharacteristically snapped, misreading her silence. “You Darkborn think marriage means that you possess each other body and soul, and Bal’s friendship with me is tantamount to infidelity. Balthasar has been my friend from the time he was barely old enough to lisp his first questions through the paper wall, long before he even met you.”

  “Balthasar’s questions got him into this,” Telmaine said bitterly, wifely loyalty or no.

  “You mean Tercelle Amberley’s children,” Floria said, her voice moving toward the screen. “I had forgotten—did Strumheller find Florilinde? Is she safe? Bal sent me a letter, but I had only just received it before all this.”

  Letter, she thought—but it could not be the letter now in Vladimer’s custody. That “I had forgotten” outraged her. “Florilinde is safe. A young colleague of Baron Strumheller’s located her, and I got her back.” Foolish, reckless, to claim so, she knew immediately, but she knew that the Lightborn woman regarded Darkborn women as willfully enfeebled and passive. She waited for Floria to say, in disbelief, “How?” but the Lightborn woman only said, “Good.”

  A silence, and then she heard Floria begin pacing. She bit her lip. She was aware how much Vladimer had withheld the first time they spoke, and had he dealt fairly with Telmaine, she would have continued to observe his wishes. But he had used her unconscionably, as bait and tether on the Broomes, and as spy upon the dukes. He might argue it was necessary, but she suspected he also believed that it was his right to use her so. He would use her, and Balthasar, and Ishmael, to shame and destruction if he chose.